C.M. Newton scholarship created at Alabama

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama has established a basketball scholarship in honor of the late C.M. Newton.

C.M. Newton, the former Kentucky athletic director who helped turn the basketball program into a national powerhouse, died Monday at age 88.

The C.M. Newton Memorial Scholarship, announced Monday, will benefit a men’s basketball player. A Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer, Newton led Alabama’s basketball program from 1968 to ’80. He died June 4 at the age of 88.

Athletic director Greg Byrne said the school “wanted to find another way to have Coach Newton’s legacy live on at the University of Alabama.”

Alabama is taking donations through the Crimson Tide Foundation.

Newton was a member of Kentucky‘s 1951 NCAA championship squad during a career spanning more than 50 years as a player, coach and administrator. He went on to become Kentucky’s athletic director and was 509-375 as a coach at Transylvania College, Alabama and Vanderbilt.